1 chicken, cut up
Butter
Mushrooms
Parsley
Flour
Stock or water
White wine
Yolks of 1 or 2 eggs
Lemon juice or vinegar

Cut a chicken in pieces and put it in a stewpan with a little butter; add to it some mushrooms, parsley, sprinkle flour over, and shake them; moisten it with stock or water; and white wine; when it has boiled once, take it from the fire and put in the yolks of one or two eggs, and a little vinegar or lemon-juice.

From The Cook’s Own Book by “A Boston Housekeeper” (Mrs. N. K. M. Lee), Boston, 1832

Comment: And you thought the concept of “fast food” was a new one? Ha. While the “in a minute” is a bit of an exaggeration, this is about as close as you’re going to come when starting out with a dead chicken and a few items from the pantry. We suspect that the chicken pieces were supposed to be taken out of the pan before the egg yolks were mixed in to thicken the sauce, and the results then poured over the chicken parts before serving. But that is just a guess on our part, so deal with the matter as seems best to you.

          

Chickens, whole if small (fryers) or cut up if large (broilers)
1 pint water
Salt
White pepper, ground
Nutmeg, grated
Mace
1 tbs. butter, rolled in flour (optional)
Livers, gizzards and hearts of chickens
Yolks of 5 eggs, hard-boiled
Sliced ham (optional)
Forcemeat (stuffing) balls (optional)
2-3 oz. macaroni, broken up and cooked separately (optional)
Layer of pie crust or puff paste, top only

Pick, clean and singe the chickens; if they are very young, keep them whole; if large, cut them in joints, and take off the skin, wash them well, parboil in a pint of water, season them with salt, white pepper, grated nutmeg, and mace mixed, and if whole, put into them a bit of butter rolled in flour, and a little of the mixed spices; lay them into a dish with the livers, and gizzards, and hearts well seasoned, add the gravy [water in which they were boiled], and yolks of five hard-boiled eggs; cover with a puff paste, and bake it for an hour.

Slices of cold ham and force-meat balls may be added to this pie. Or wash in cold water two or three ounces of macaroni, break it into small bits, simmer it for nearly half an hour in milk and water, drain and put it with the chickens into the dish, and also an ounce of butter.

From The Good Housekeeper by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1841

Comment: This recipe comes with so many options it is a bit of a challenge to figure out what to do. Whole small chickens or larger ones cut up? With thickener (the butter-rolled-in-flour) or without? Added macaroni? Ham and stuffing rolled into balls? And just what was “macaroni” in the 1860s anyway? This is part of what makes historic cooking fun. This dish is whatever you want it to be. Do be sure to boil the chicken somewhat before mixing it with the other ingredients to bake into a pie, lest it be underdone when the other ingredients are toasty and ready to eat. Aside from possible health concerns from undercooked poultry, you need the broth created by the boiling to moisten the pie itself.  And in answer to the macaroni question, it seems the term was applied to any sort of egg-and-flour noodle which was dried out rather than eaten fresh-made. If you have broken bits of lasagne lingering in the bottoms of boxes, this might be a good use for it.

          

1 chicken, cut up
1/2 lb. salt pork
Salt
Pepper
Flour
1 cup milk, or half milk, half cream
1 tbs. flour
1 tbs. butter
Parsley, chopped

Cut up half a pound of fat salt pork in a frying-pan, and fry until the grease is extracted, but not until it browns. Wash and cut up a young chicken (broiling size), soak in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry, season with pepper and dredge with flour; then fry in the hot fat until each piece is a rich brown on both sides. Take up, drain, and set aside in a hot covered dish.

Pour into the gravy left in the frying-pan a cup of milk–half cream is better; thicken with a spoonful of flour and a table-spoonful of butter; add some chopped parsley, boil up, and pour over the hot chicken. This is a standard dish in the Old Dominion, and tastes nowhere else as it does when eaten on Virginia soil. The cream-gravy is often omitted, and the chicken served up dry, with bunches of fried parsley dropped upon it.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Half a pound of lard (which is essentially what salt pork is, you are just doing the “rendering” process in miniature in the frying pan) would probably horrify a modern dietician, but it is unquestionably the way to produce the world’s best fried chicken. Let your conscience, your waistline, and (sigh) your most recent cholesterol readings be your guide as to how often you wish to partake of this delight. The gravy, of course, is where the true wickedness comes from, but once again, you will never taste better in your life. If you wish to feel virtuous, you may omit the step of frying the parsley and strew it over the chicken in its fresh green state.

          

1 chicken, cut up
1/2 lb. salt pork
Salt
Pepper
Flour
1 cup milk, or half milk, half cream
1 tbs. flour
1 tbs. butter
Parsley, chopped

Cut up half a pound of fat salt pork in a frying-pan, and fry until the grease is extracted, but not until it browns. Wash and cut up a young chicken (broiling size), soak in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry, season with pepper and dredge with flour; then fry in the hot fat until each piece is a rich brown on both sides. Take up, drain, and set aside in a hot covered dish.

Pour into the gravy left in the frying-pan a cup of milk–half cream is better; thicken with a spoonful of flour and a table-spoonful of butter; add some chopped parsley, boil up, and pour over the hot chicken. This is a standard dish in the Old Dominion, and tastes nowhere else as it does when eaten on Virginia soil. The cream-gravy is often omitted, and the chicken served up dry, with bunches of fried parsley dropped upon it.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Half a pound of lard (which is essentially what salt pork is, you are just doing the “rendering” process in miniature in the frying pan) would probably horrify a modern dietician, but it is unquestionably the way to produce the world’s best fried chicken. Let your conscience, your waistline, and (sigh) your most recent cholesterol readings be your guide as to how often you wish to partake of this delight. The gravy, of course, is where the true wickedness comes from, but once again, you will never taste better in your life. If you wish to feel virtuous, you may omit the step of frying the parsley and strew it over the chicken in its fresh green state.